Recent Ethernet standards such as IEEE standard 802.3bj-2014 define physical layers (PHY) for 100-gigabit and 40-gigabit communications over backplane and copper cable assemblies. The standards also define optional modes for energy efficient Ethernet (EEE). In particular, a transmitter may enter a low-power idle (LPI) state when the transmitter has no data to transmit. In the LPI state, the transmitter may power down the transmitter and then periodically power up the transmitter to refresh the communication link. The transmitter may leave the LPI state at any time. However, in certain scenarios, transitioning out of the LPI state may cause short-term deadlocks or other timing errors with the remote link partner, causing data loss and potentially causing the link to be dropped. For example, exiting the LPI state during a particular window of time of a link refresh may cause data loss. Based on the length of the window and the link refresh cycle time, data loss may occur once for every 12,272 exits from the LPI state.